When I travel, I always take my Winsor & Newton watercolor kit, which is the size of a pack of cigarettes when folded up. I bought my first one in the 1980s. It was handy to bring on trips, and I packed it into a leather pouch along with a couple of brushes, a pencil, an eraser and paper.
So many bad things happen in this world because people don't know how to express things.
The teenager's room is her cave. It is here she can meet herself, undistracted by the new hassles life is making for her. Here, she can reflect.
Preserving that privacy between a writer and the work is important. You have to shut out all those voices that have reacted to your work.
When I was in my teens and twenties, I could see friends expressing how radical they were, and I envied them, the way they lived, the way they dressed. Maybe there is a part of me that is reserved, even in rebellion.
Writing an adaptation is not so much a collaboration as it is a series of steps. You're basically creating a blueprint for something else.
People can have a variety of concerns at the same time. Even those undergoing grave or traumatic experiences will acknowledge the need for lightness or even entertainment.
Recording a scene with paint rather than film sinks you more deeply into your surroundings. You have to look a little harder and a little longer. And you end up with a memento.
'Monkeys' is made up of nine short stories that tell an overall story. 'Folly' is a series of vignettes all put together to tell a larger story. In 'Lust and Other Stories,' there are nine stories - three, three, three; the beginnings of love, the middles, and the afters.
In general, my own experience of writing an adaptation of 'Evening' gave me a chance to get into different parts of the book.
I went to graduate school with zero expectation. I kind of backed into it. I wanted to go back to school because I felt gaps in my literary background. I studied mostly twentieth-century English literature in college, so I thought, 'Maybe I'll go back for my writing.'
Minimalism has a connotation of being reductive, and not in the best way. 'Brevetist' is a better term. I'm trying to be as concise as possible and still getting across to the reader. When information is delivered in that way, it is very satisfying to me.
Writing chases after the senses, and conveys them in an altered form. When it is done well, the senses come alive in a new and captured form.
Desire suppressed finds its way into other more surreal settings, into dreams.
David Gulden captures animals in all their wonder and intrigue, without glorifying or romanticizing them. He knows Kenya's wildlife intimately, and it shows in the depth of his images. He has an artist's eye, which delivers beauty and transport in every picture.
There are aspects of love that I once undervalued. Kindness. Having a sort of honor when love is on the table.
Recklessness is par for the course when you're 25.
Success did change me. You don't want it to, but it does.
Most fiction comes from your experience.
A lot of readers want characters to behave in a responsible way, or they want to understand the characters' dilemma and act, in a way, on their behalf.
